Driveway Drama

  (The drama part comes from me, as in the thirty minutes I spent writing ONE paragraph to perfection only to delete it with the swipe of a fat finger!  The actual driveway process has gone pretty smoothly so far.  Proceed.)

  As evidenced by this super (not) awesome photo I took, our house has a one-car carport.  One car, not three cars plus a boat.  It doesn't take much to guess that this can be a little complicated since all four won't fit in one space and no matter how creative we line up on the driveway, somebody always has to move so somebody else can get out.  It just doesn't work. 

  So for nearly two years now we've been parking two vehicles outside the carport and one on the driveway outside the carport, but behind the boat (not pictured, it's in the backyard!)  This has worked fairly well, but it's a grass killer. 

  And see how close Boots' truck is parked to that flower bed on the passenger side?  There's a Hawthorne tree in that flower bed and that thing hurts!  I'm talking thorns big enough to make the thorniest rosebush green with envy if it wasn't already green.

  See, look!  Hawthorne is that big one as tall as the house.  It was waaaaay bigger and more humongous than this, but I've tried killing it (several times) by whacking all the limbs back as close as possible in hopes that it will just dry up and die.  No such luck.  If you want hardy and dangerous, Hawthorne is your man tree.

  After hem-hawing around for about 18 months, I've finally decided that it's time for Hawthorne to go.  So on the afternoon of a 100 degree day, Boots and I dug up and transplanted what flowers we did want (one rosebush, about fifty orange daylilies, and some things I don't even know) and ripped up what we didn't. 

  We're planning to cover this whole dirty area with crushed asphalt right on up to where the grass meets the concrete driveway.  There's just no point in having a flower bed that no one will see because a truck parks in front of it and these two bites of grass are more trouble than they're worth when it comes to dragging out the lawn mower and cutting them.  Neat and tidy from here on out is the game plan.

  (This might classify as a crime scene photo.  See the drag marks?)

  The flower bed was pretty much vamoose at this point other than that little swatch of ivy.

  And my pitiful garden (too much shade) may make itself useful now.

  I watered these suckers every day for three days and then I forgot.  Maybe they'll make it, but probably not.  I have a black thumb.  If they live, they may be moved again to another (better) location.

  So ends Day One of the Driveway Drama.

Day Two (four days later, still 100 degrees) was a bulldozer in our yard leveling off the driveway so it will be nice and smooth for the crushed asphalt.

  The driveway will come together in stages and include a big roller to help pack the crushed asphalt down tightly.  

You can't even tell there was once a flower bed there.  The bricks look so tidy now without all that junk  overgrown mess Hawthorne covering them up.  It should look pretty nice after we get it all done.